


Unnoticed

by Lanerose



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-06
Updated: 2007-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-15 20:53:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7238113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lanerose/pseuds/Lanerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life for them is as simple and as complicated as that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unnoticed

No one notices any more when Sanzo is threatening them with his gun, waving it in the air and firing a warning shot or two. If he's glaring at them and shouting insults or hitting the monkey with the fan, it's par for the course. His angry mutterings, the tensing of his jaw, and that slight tick just above his left eye are ignored without a moment's thought, because that's Sanzo, take him or leave him, and they're already committed to taking him at least as far as Shangri-la, so it's not worth it to think about leaving him just yet.  
  
No one worries any more when Goku is whining for the hundredth time that day that he's  _hungry_ , and when are they going to  _eat_ , and why did they have to leave from breakfast so quickly anyway? If he's calling Gojyo a cockroach while apologizing to Hakkai and Sanzo for doing so, even though no one for a moment thinks he'll ever be sorry enough to stop – if that's happening, no one so much as bats an eye. His stomach's grumblings complaints and his overly enthusiastic cheers about nothing at all don't matter, because Goku is (almost) never actually full no matter how much he's eaten and always has something to say even if it's just that those mountains in the distance aren't as tall as the ones back home or that the sky is blue, but that's Goku, and the stupid monkey is so clingy and so fast on foot that they probably couldn't leave him behind even if they tried.   _Especially_  not Sanzo.  
  
No one says anything when Gojyo smokes his twentieth cigarette of the morning and wonders aloud for the third time before noon whether there'll be any pretty women in the town that they had  _better_  be reaching tonight. If he's pushing Sanzo's buttons and fending off a fight from Goku because the kid's yelling at him for pushing Sanzo's buttons, well, that's just part of the usual bag of tricks. His lecherous smile and ask-me-if-I-care slouch don't ruffle anyone's feathers, because there's always some pretty girl and another bottle of beer, and since he almost got killed the one time they  _did_  leave him alone for five minutes, he clearly can't be left on his own.  
  
No one complains any more when Hakkai acts like he's their mother any more, and not just because he practically is, and does a good job of it, including making a mean stew with whatever they happen to find on any given night. If he's laughing absently as Sanzo settles down for a smoke in the front seat after smacking the heck out of Goku and Gojyo with that paper fan, or humming a tune that doesn't come from anywhere under his breath just because he can, it's business as usual with the Sanzo group. His smiling eyes and unworried expression don't attract any notice, because Hakkai stays calm even when people all around him are losing their heads and being crazy, and damned if they don't need someone like him traveling with them given how often they lose their cool.  
  
No one notices because these are the things that simply are, and none of them knows what they would do if these things ever weren't. Life for them is as simple and as complicated as that.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for puella_nerdii as part of gen_challenge. I'm belatedly unhappy with the way I interpreted the prompt (which was "proof of life"), so I may do a variation on it in the future.


End file.
